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Topic: Golem Wars- A world idea.. (Read 13412 times)

Long ago there was a great war. A war were man pitched machine against machine in fierce massive battles. These machines were golems. The war was fought by a legion of evil and an alliance of good. On the side of evil there were that of dark elves, orks, goblins, and undead. On the side of good were men, high elves, and dwarves. The great evil wished to concoure to entire world but the good wanted to protect it. Each side built golems, from iron to adamantium, to use in battles for supremecy. Now these wars are over, but some of the Golems remain. A society called M.A.D. (magical artifact destruction) is seeking out the last of the golems and destroying them, for fear that they might fall into the wrong hands.

Ah. Technomagical, mysticpunk, world background. Escoflone rocks, as does this background.

MAD is a little silly, but very anime. Another name might be better.

There is probably an elite profession of golem fighters and destroyers. It could be an archetype or class or an prestige class if your system handles such things.

Each golem should have a "key", an item that activates and deactivates the golem (a safety device). Each adventure would follow this pattern, finding the key... following it to the golem (homing spell)... subduing the golem, inserting key... all the while dealing with the subplots heaped upon the players by the other players and GM. (A variation would be find a golem being a problem, fight it in an attempt to stop it, search for the key, retreive it, subdue golem, then insert key).

If they Key gives you control over the golem (instead of it following its own needs/ demands/ dementia), then local bad guys are either using the golem or searching for the key as well.

Or maybe the Golems have mystic powercells. You have to subdue the golem and remove its powercell (or make a spectacular aimed attack and break it).

Or maybe you just have to heap damage upon the things to stop them.

This is more of a world setting, campaign description rather than a single plot. You could not just drop this into a world, you would have to backweave the golem war, the ramifications of the golem war, and so on.

I'm a good friend of Erik's, and, back in the RL, my character in Golem Wars discovered that all golems (Except for Solar Golems, which are solar-powered) are powered by a magical battery of sorts which contains a power fluid.

This reminds of an idea out of the Parlainth supplement to Earthdawn, but they never took the idea anywhere interesting.

The horrors of Earthdawn found the hidden city and slaughter the inhabitants with ease, then discovered they were trapped in the hidden place and had nothing to do now. So they started commanding the golems and set them up in mock battles. Most of the straw and wax golems were destroyed, but stone, steel, and orchalium survived to the 'present'. Many were given life, a soul, or something resembling consiousness, to make them greater challenges. Now, they still fight on, warring over meaningless trophies of bones and sticks, without masters or reasons why.

This golem idea is cool, and fighters designed specifically to hunt them cool too, but it begs the question: why?

Are the golems a threat by themselves, or just in the wrong hands? Could the parts of the golem be valuable as highly enchanted material or works of art? Are they alive or in possesion of a type of soul and should they keep it?

Any answer to these questions is good, but they set a different tone to the events surrounding the golems.

Suppose an evil wizard finds the old texts on making a type of golem and does so, sacrificing someone in the process. The golem breaks free and slays the wizard in escaping, and now a confused soul is trapped in the body of a magical beast, trying to get back to the life and loved ones he knew.

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After a brief retirement while I got married and traveled the country, I'm back. Just getting back into the swing of things for now, but gearing up to hit things up like I used to.

CP: TY Reading the original post showed that it was much more than a one off scenario.

I would think the golems are somewhat intelligent. Some might have their own agenda, while others are just following the last set of orders given to them, while others are being controlled by new masters.

However, they are not human in intelligence or in drive/ motivations. They do not get hungry, physically tired, or need to reproduce, so they don't have any of the basic motivations that humans have. What is left? Duty, Honor, Pride, Glory, Rank/ Social position in the structure of things, (all things associated with military folks), Self Preservation, and Escape are all things I could see motivating military golems. They might once again start hunting down all humans/ sentients because once they are all gone, the golems might be safe again.

Has anyone read the Bolo books? Sometimes ultimate weapons are more hassle than they are worth.

Ooooohhhh! What a great idea! Bolo = golem! CASTLE GOLEM! Yes! An animated castle wadeing across the lands, moved by some dark force on his quest for domination. Whoo Hoo! Not only do the players have to sneak into the bad guy's castle to kick his butt, he's headed towards their home town. Mwha ha ha ha!

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After a brief retirement while I got married and traveled the country, I'm back. Just getting back into the swing of things for now, but gearing up to hit things up like I used to.

If you read the D&D SBG (Stronghold Builder's Guide for the people who don't routinely spend $100+ on books), you would see a variant on golems that would be the perfect counter for a castle golem. The siege golem. It has a massive crossbow/ballista type thing mounted on its back, and, if I recall correctly, it has a large club for close in work.

Now there's an idea. A gigantic golem, armed with a club/sword/axe/whatever, with a gondola on the back, potentially a pilot/mahout/whatever, and men armed with crossbows. Turn what is effectively a huge anti-fortification weapon into an even bigger anti-fortification weapon with effective anti-personnel capability.

Reminds me of those elephant things from the LOTR third movie. Huge, with anti-calvary abiliy, though in this case I guess its anti-fortification, and then adding a pilot and a small squad of archers or crossbow men allows them to defend the golem and take out other personal. I likes it.

Of course, then there're the golems designed in odd ways... Like the ones shaped after a preying mantis, only made out of a heavy metal. They make a great anti-cavalry force, with those huge bladed forelimbs...

And if we're contemplating mobile golem-castles, why not an entire town living on the back of an animate chunk of land?

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"I grab the sword!""Mmkay, you're dead.""What!?""You just grabbed the sword of the god you were just personally responsible for banishing from the world for the next ten thousand years. You just got zapped by around a billion volts of Angry Divine Power. You're dead."

AKA Genius locus. Genius locus is a concept for an area that is intelligent. Usually benign according to mythology, it would have a person who was it's symbiote. Imagine a huge genius locus, animated, moved by massive golems, commanded by a warlord who had built his castle on the back of the intelligent land. His right hand man is the locus' symbiote, and the locus commands the golems. A little farfetched, but this is fantasy, after all.

Imagine if the golem makers of old were half as creative as you bunch. Imagine what wonderous self animated weapons of destruction they could create. Now we know why things got out of hand and why when peace broke out, everyone rushed around to destroy these things.

Golems are not manned. They are self animated. The Golems might of rebelled once they found out they were going to be "decommissioned" at the end of the conflict.

Hmmmmmm. Imagine giant statues that knights/ warriors merge into, animating them. You get all the advantages of a person controlling these things AND all the power of a giant golem (with cool techical adds). Fantasy Mecha. Anime? a bit. But they would be powerful tools. I have called them Titans in a game I am working on.

...A golem with a quirk of being unable to kill innocents would be interesting...

Suppose the process of making golems was unstable, and tended to add "personality quirks"?

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"I grab the sword!""Mmkay, you're dead.""What!?""You just grabbed the sword of the god you were just personally responsible for banishing from the world for the next ten thousand years. You just got zapped by around a billion volts of Angry Divine Power. You're dead."

I would not think that a golem was self aware. I would consider it like a computer program, perhaps even a complex one... like an artificial agent (Eliza, Fred, an expert system). This gives you a tool with a very rigid thought pattern. Give one of these systems bad data or the wrong idea, and thinks could get interesting.

Imagine if towards the end of the wars, they made self aware golems... in an attempt to make better soldiers. Eventually, they might of wanted "rights" and had the power to try and take them.... This could be why the wars ended... All the Golems revolted and the people had to stop them...

Hey, I liked the idea, and for some time I've been molding it into something of my own make, I was just wondering if it would be alright to use the idea on another forum or as a game in itself?I'll put it up when I'm done if anyone wants to see what I've made it into, not completely the same but not real different either.